Perhaps you had a bad case of triskaidekaphobia and missed last Friday’s announcement that the Men’s 2014 Chess Championship will be held in Sochi this November. The re-match between Magnus Carlsen & Viswanathan Anand will be hosted in Sochi.
The agreement between Putin and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (FIDE President) will perhaps salvage Sochi’s reputation after all of the Olympic insults about it being less than suitable, unfinished site. This tournament will also be juxtaposed against the political climate since Russia annexed Crimea after Sochi Olympics.
The chess tournament is also going to be challenged by Russian finances, as the Bloomberg article indicates that Russia needs to add an extra $58 Billion to ease their bank system’s funding shortage putting at least one bank:
Sberbank is between Scylla and Charybdis
— an analyst at BCS Financial Group
Toss in a former chess champion, Russian Activist, Garry Kasparov (Га́рри Ки́мович Каспа́ров) and this tournament has all the making of another drama that could blow up in the face of FIDE and/or Putin. Stanczyk loves Slavic dramas!